


Lapidot Week 2016

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Airplanes, Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Sports, Bubble Bath, Cute, Drabble Collection, F/F, Humor, School, Volleyball
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-09 00:56:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7780609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My collection of works for Lapidot week!</p><p>1. Earth! (learning about earth together)- Bubbles<br/>2. Art School AU- Lapis is a morose art student at her first exhibition and Peridot is the one man band playing outside in the rain<br/>3. stars/stargazing- Lapis is a airplane stewardess with her passenger gf trying to get her attention<br/>4. sports/olympics AU- Peridot is the new player on the Crystal Gems girls Volleyball team and Lapis decides to vet her</p><p>my <a href="http://insomniac-arrest.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Water Fluff and Flooding

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I jumped the gun a little and wrote the first prompt the day before, the event starts tomorrow if you're curious! http://lapidot-week-2016.tumblr.com/post/148593056382/hello-everyone-and-this-is-the-official
> 
> it should be a lot of fun.

It was a dry day, the kind that caused Lapis’s hair to friz and her skin to itch just a little bit, she sat under a parasol and focused her eyes on the little TV depicting a group of humans wondering around in the dark with flashlights.

She picks at her nails and wind licks her shins as she lounges.

“Lazuuuliii,” Lapis blinks and jerks herself back from the screen, glancing down to find Peridot hopping from foot to foot on the ground.

“Hi.” Lapis says quirking her eyebrow up curiously.

Peridot hums and stares at her, “What season is that?”

Lapis snorts, “four. They’re going to find ghost of cabin lake.”

“It has a disappointing ending. I have something better to show you.” Peridot says with a grin like wildfires and Turquoises that don’t know when to quit.

Lapis goes back and forth until she concedes and flies down, “what?” She looked around for some new metal contraption Peridot might be floating up in the air.

“Oh, you are gonna a kick out of this.” Peridot crowed, Lapis blinked and her interest was caught.

“One of those flying red dots?” She ventures, remembering ‘lady bugs,’ and Peridot shook her head.

She held a small bottle up and then took Lapis’s wrist, “okay, I was back in Steven’s bathroom, for old times sake. And also, it turns out he’s not home.”

Lapis cracked a grin, “snooping huh? Good.”

Peridot looked back to her, “exploring. And I was messing with some of the nozzles, and this fell in!”

“Uh-huh.” Lapis’s attention was taken by a floating white wisp of a butterfly and she follows it with her eyes steadily as it climbs up into the blue horizon.

Peridot places them besides their smaller-than-average lake, “okay, okay, watch closely.”

Peridot’s stance was wide and low, she squeezes a smooth pink substance into the water, it swirls in lazy circles and starts sinking to the bottom.

“Um,” Lapis bends over, “does it explode in a second like those colorful sky things?”

Peridot shakes her head as her cheeks tinted green, “uh,” She seems to think and pauses to read the bottle, “do you think you could…move it around?”

Lapis shrugs and puts her hands out, “sure.”

She starts churning the water from side to side and mixing it, the effect was almost immediate, the water starts foaming, but not like a storm foams or an ocean wave breaks, but like a cloud bursting from the edges. Lapis leans forward.

“See? They’re called Bubbles!” Peridot clapped her hands in triumph and cackled, “they float! Keep going, keep going.”

Lapis was definitely not stopping there, she swishes the entire lake while Peridot pours more of the substance in until the bottle is making short wheezing noises and the water is overflowing.

“Hehe,” Lapis laughs and snorts at the end as the entire area overflows with the odd fluff, it licks at her toes, “Earth is so weird, I can’t believe it, there water turns to mush.” It became a towering column of froth and little spheres stacked ontop of each other, Lapis was somewhat pleased with the effects.

“It’s like meep morps.” She declares and thinks about showing Steven.

“Feel it,” Peridot was bending down and cupping it in her hands to toss it in the air, Lapis steps backwards.

“I dunno.” It was kind of weird looking, and she wasn’t about to be swallowed by it or whatever earth had in store.

Peridot took her hand and guided it towards the ‘bubbles’ slowly, “it’s fun.” She kept saying and Lapis frowned, she gives in and creeps forward.

Peridot put her hand on a cup of it.

It was wet and tingled at the touch, Lapis jumped, “it pops.” She exclaims and Peridot tossed it at her and Lapis brushed it away easily, “it pops!” She reiterates and tosses a large chunk of it back at Peridot.

Peridot makes a short cry and is covered in it down to her feet, Lapis laughs as Peridot bats at it.

Lapis couldn’t help it, she started poking each bubble to watch it disappear and watch Peridot throw it around like torn up pieces of mist.

They toss the terrible water-fluff at each other and run around, Lapis wins naturally with the aid of water and water- she may laugh more then necessary as well.

“Why would they even do this to water?” Lapis rolls it around lightly in her hands as the bubbles start to fade and be consumed back up by the pond. “It’s..silly.”

“I know!” Peridot was as giddy as a CPH montage about poutine and tossed her hands in the air, “it serves no functional purpose! Like everything else on earth.”

Lapis sighs and pats her damp hair down, “like us.”

Peridot pokes at the last of the bubbles, “sure. It’s just like us now, it’s greats.”

Lapis tears up the grass around them and lets the wind pick up the strands and toss it down the hill in dancing patterns, “speak for yourself. You’re the silly bubbles.”

Peridot sits crossed legged across from her and Lapis hunches her shoulders up, “at least you like bubbles, right?”

Lapis looks away and knows her face is a deeper shade of blue, “they’re not bad.”  Peridot’s smile somehow widens and Lapis bends her knees up to her chest, “they’re fine…Fun.”

Peridot looked like she might burst, instead she hops to her feet and puts her hand out towards Lapis, “come on, there are more I bet at Steven’s place. I think it’s meant to be done with hot water anyway.”

Lapis feels her face light up again, “okay, yeah.”

“From my research, it’s part of a ‘bath.’ For getting ‘clean’.”

Lapis blinks, “why do they need to get clean?”

“Lapis, you have no idea, get a load of this,”  Peridot tries to explain earth culture to her one step at a time and Lapis gets bored and picks her up to fly the rest of the way to Steven’s house.

They turn on the hot water and let it run while figuring out which of the bottles foam the best. Lapis kicks around in the hot liquid and Peridot squeals when it’s starts going out the windows.

Steven gets home shortly with the Crystal Gems and he seems to get a shade paler, Lapis flies up to him in a little dance.

“Steven!” She beams, “look at this, these things float, and they pop- and it’s actually water. They’re so weird.”

“I’m happy you’re happy Lapis,” Steven looked around mutely, “you guys flooded the house…again.” It was true, Lapis and Peridot had succeeded in making the most amount of bubbles possible.

“Isn’t it great!” Peridot also tried to show him the advantages of a damp living room, however Lapis and Peridot end up banned from the main house for the fifth time.

They go home laughing and Lapis makes raspberries every time Pearl tried to chastise them- Peridot loves that and Lapis can’t stop herself from keep doing it.

They sneak some of the bubbles home with them.


	2. By Her Hands

The soft wind tossed Peridot’s gelled hair to the side, she stuck out her tongue as she fixed her mouth piece around her head. Several pedestrians passed in padded hurried steps and excited calls of out-of-towners coming for the art exhibit.

Peridot coughs lightly and lets the light drizzle wet her cheeks. The sky was as white-grey as a sheet of construction paper and misted the city in a barely-there dampness.

“My mama,” Peridot begins thinly.

She brushes the harmonica across her lips and pumped the accordion slowly open then closed.

“Oh my mama, my mama, my mama,” she belts out and spread the accordion, hopping up and down, “she told me, those girls are gonna break your heart but soothe the soul, don’t you dare stop searchin’.”

A father and a daughter with a dozen braids throws some change in her direction.

Peridot smiles and snatched a kazoo out of her pocket and blows into it harshly before strumming her ground guitar with her foot, “she showed up in a puff of smoke and devil of a grin, these girls are gonna break your heart but soothe your soul, don’t you know it.”

Peridot blew into her harmonica with an attempt at blues-esque swagger, and leans back and presses the piano keys on the accordion.

“My mama, my mama,” a passing business man tosses a crumpled five into Peridot’s open instrument case and she pauses to whoop.

“Hey thanks!” She calls to his back and he’s already gone. Peridot kneels and finishes the song quickly to pocket the change she’d collected.

She hums to herself and prepares for the next set, considering some sort of combination of Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ and Beethoven’s fifth.

She hears a heavy laugh that crunched at the edges like cereal and snorted in the middle, Peridot turns around quickly.

A girl in a ratty blue hoodie and a circle skirt, pockets heavy with what looked like rocks, stood at the studio doors. Peridot tilted her head,the girl had hair as electric blue as 7-11 slushies and jolly ranchers, just as messy as a bird in a windstorm.

“What?” Peridot asks cautiously as she watches the girl’s white teeth gleam.

“You’re terrible!” She declares with a hoot and Peridot blows air out of her nose.

“Did you want something?” She asks coolly, the blue haired girl was a familiar sight around Peridot’s corner, she seemed to work at the building behind her Peridot mused. 

“It’s okay,” her eyes crinkled, “it’s relatable.”

Peridot makes a face, “huh? Okay. Anyway, I’m Peridot the Magnificent,” she raises her arms with a flourish, “and if you are nice I could play you something.”

The girl shrugs and leans on the wall next to her, she seemed to be reaching for a pack in her pocket, “I’m Lapis the Indigestible, and it’s okay. I just came here to get away.”

Peridot studies her and licks her dry lips, “you guys have been working on that show for awhile.” She observes colorlessly.

Lapis’s eyes fold into themselves, “so you’ve been paying attention.” She flips a cigarette out of her pocket and wanders back over to where Peridot was against the brick wall. She slides down the window. “It’s my class’s exhibit. Don’t worry about it.”

Peridot stares up at the Chicago sky, as light grey and damp as soggy eyes of a God. Peridot turns with a smile, “I’m sure it’s great.”

Lapis blinks at her and slips the cigarette between her cracked lips, she flicks a lighter open. “And if it’s not?”

Peridot hits her drum on his hip and eases down next to Lapis, “you can always makes fives on street corners.” She shows her the uneven face of Lincoln on the bill.

Lapis laughs a little morosely and her eyes crinkled at the edges. “Alright. You have a point- I can always make found art fortresses and live in that.”

Peridot nods enthusiastically, Lapis puffs in a thin veil of red ash and the acrid smell of burning tar and motels you rent for the hour fills Peridot’s nose. She sticks out her tongue.

“Do you want one?” Lapis asks innocently.

Peridot shakes her head, “gotta keep my harmonica lungs primed.” She toots into the instrument and the pretty girl was smiling again, frayed and unsure of itself like a secret that never sees the light of day.

“Oh I’m sure, come on,” Lapis looked her up and down, “you’re wearing high tops, I’ve been talking about this with Amethyst, you can’t really be living off this sort of money.”

Peridot shrugs and wheezes her accordion back and forth as she talks, “you don’t know, I could have stolen these off somebody.” She wiggles her eyebrows, “a dead body.”

Lapis’s smile turns teasing, “what, of like, a nine year old?” She points to Peridot’s small feet and Peridot makes an indignant cough.

“Ha. Ha. Maybe I’ll take your shoes next,” she responds gingerly, but Lapis sticking out her flip flops and handing them to her.

“Here. I hate shoes, take ‘em.”

Peridot shakes her head and coughs into her arm, the flips flops were worn and grimy as a forgotten buoy in the ocean, “er. Nevermind. No thanks.”

Lapis sat next to her discarded shoes and smoked warily, her face blank and falling off her high cheekbones.

“So,” Peridot twiddles her thumbs and looks around, “how was the art show going in there?”

She waits for Lapis to maybe get up and leave, but the girl stays in one place and puts out her cigarette, “wanna make out?”

Peridot jumps and could swear her hair was standing on end, “I’m a musician, not a, uh, uh, lady of the night!” her cheeks were burning and Lapis’s eyes were half moons.

“You keep coughing. I figure if I catch something and get horribly sick I won’t have to finish the rest of the show…skip class tomorrow, stay in bed. God knows I can’t survive another of Ricky Thompson’s detailed group ‘critiques.’”

Peridot watched her mouth move and her shoulders sank down, “I could just spit on you.” She offers sarcastically.

Lapis opens her arms wide, “go ahead.” Peridot starts sniffing and gathering water in her mouth, “wait wait!” Lapis threw up her arms, “kidding, kidding.”

Peridot laughs, low in her stomach and real, “you’re kinda funny for such a sad sack.” She says friendly.

“And you still haven’t told me why your shoes are worth like hundred bucks each.” Lapis was examining her and Peridot sighs.

“I was an engineering student, ya know?” She starts off instead, and tip-taps at her drum with energized fingers, “had a nervous breakdown. My adviser told me to leave, so called her a clod, had another breakdown.” She shrugs and smiles brightly, “and I thought this would be more fun.”

Lapis leans her head back and her dark eyes are rich like new soil or shining cloudless days. Peridot takes in a deep breath in through her nose.

“Play me something.” Lapis says carefully and Peridot readjusts her straps and hands to reach for all the instruments.

“Okay.”

Peridot opens her accordion and starts, “the devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal…” She begins and Lapis sat up straighter and clapped her hands together/

It was Peridot’s most popular hit, passersby tossed dollar bills down, but Peridot didn’t move her eyes from off Lapis’s delighted features.

Lapis began singing along with her by the end, “…Johnny said, ‘Devil just, come on back if you ever want to try again, I done told you once **_you son of a bitch!_** ” They yelled that line, “I’m best that’s ever been.”

They laugh with carefree flushes on their cheeks and Lapis stands up and slips a ten into Peridot’s mouthpiece, like a kiss across the cheeks.

“Oh my God,” Lapis gigled, “that really wasn’t so bad.”

“Of course.” Peridot says with chest puffed out. Something lands on her shoulder.

Peridot blinked and looked up at the sky, a fat raindrop hit her in the center of her forehead.

Lapis took her wrist, “hey.” Lapis says somewhere between a whisper and a prayer, “wanna see my pieces? It’s about to rain, and my classmates will wig out that I brought the silly one man band in.”

Peridot frowned, “silly?”

Lapis leaned in and pecked a small kiss to Peridot’s harmonica, “wonderful. Great. Good enough.”

Peridot shuffles her feet, “lead away.”

Lapis takes her into a spacious art studio brimming with garbage bags stacked on top of each other, televisions blinking ‘Leave it to Beaver’ reruns. Orbs on fire titled ‘Our Future’ and high heels stuck in a mud made of lipstick goop.

Lapis explained them all to Peridot offhandedly and took her to a tall pile of fine white sand with tiny shovels and flip flops stuck into the sides. A little tiny sand castle formed at the edge, delicate arches and doorways meticulously made.

Peridot smiled at it and shook her shoulder, “I love it!”

Lapis giggled, “it’s just sand.”

Peridot shook her head, “art.” She says exuberantly with jazz hands.

“It represents the time I went to the beach as a kid.” Lapis says simply.

“And uh,” Peridot peers forward, “the charred flip flops represent how our childhood memories burn us the farther we get away from them, as adult life burdens us with it’s weight.”

Lapis blinks back, “it represents that I hate shoes.”

They laugh again, and another student comes over and Lapis sticks her tongue out and explains that ‘Todd here is a piece of work onto himself.”

Todd scowls at her, “ I said, we are all art. That’s why I didn’t bring in anything.”

Lapis sighs, “and what did the prof give you?”

“A.” He responds smugly and holds up his five page paper, Lapis groans with her hands tearing at her hair.

“I spent five days on this stupid castle.” She grumbles lowly with the word ‘pretentious’ and ‘bastards’ thrown in.

Peridot shakes her head and slips her hand into hers, “wanna go somewhere?”

Lapis blinks, her eyelashes fluttering and her face thickly showing her thought process: slow as the dawn and then growing warm. “Sure.”

Lapis’s teacher tells her to ‘think more carefully next time.’ And Peridot drags her away and they get back-alley hot dogs and Lapis shows her favorite cats in the park.

Peridot plays her her Justin Bieber-heavy metal- Kiss remix and Lapis laughs enthusiastically and slips her a phone number written in little bubble letters.

‘ART’ it reads on the second half with a little devil making a kissy face. Peridot can’t stop smiling, she plays only love songs the next day on the corner. 


	3. Let me Count the Ways

_Five Hours Thirty Minutes_

Lapis could feel her feet aching already like the devil wanted her jump back into the ocean to become sea foam and not marry the human prince (which would be okay with Lapis anyway).

She didn’t know why she let Jamie talk her into wearing heels for that particular flight: ‘you look cute!’ He said, ‘Don’t you want to look cute for her?’

“No.” She grit through her teeth and started to get more blankets and colorless flat pillows out of the overhead.

She walks the pillows out to the family in seats 59 A to B. The mother bowed her head politely and Lapis smiles as large as she can

“Welcome to the America! We are in LA and will be in New York in five hours thirty minutes.” She informs them, they didn’t seem to understand her, but they smile right back very widely.

Lapis reminds herself to check in with them regularly, a sweet family on vacation it seemed.

She walks up and down the aisle, balancing on her heels and checking each row carefully: seats and tray tables up.

The Delta flight to JFK was taken in a type of a twilight zone: honeyed lights at half-bright, bowed heads, soft whispers of a barely half full seats, smelling of sterilizer and warmth of human bodies. A dark sunset outside the bubble of busy life that surrounded them.

“Stewardess!” Lapis stiffened up and bit the inside of her cheek.

She takes a deep breath in through her nose and turns on her heel to the first class section.

She blinks and Peridot gives her a sneaking grin, “could I have another pillow ma'am?” She says innocently with her eyelashes batting.

Lapis rolls her eyes and tosses her the loaf of pillow that would be the saltine if it was a food, “you’re loving this.” She says stiffly to her girlfriend.

Peridot giggles and rearranges herself, “I finally get to see you at work…Nice shoes by the way, miss stewardess.”

Lapis scuffs her heels on the carpet and shrugs, she suppresses a blush, “it’s nothing. Besides, don’t get used to it.” Lapis looks around and then slips into the seat next to her girlfriend, elbowing her cheekily, “in three months I get my pilot’s license.”

Peridot grins at her and leans forward, “yes you do.” Peridot went in for the kiss, but Lapis dodges and pats her head.

“Gotta go ready for take off. Apparently the airport told the passengers the wrong time, but we’re taking off without them anyway.”

Peridot snorts, “you guys are dicks.”

Lapis nods and readjusts her skirt, “you bet.”

Peridot looked like she had something else to say, but Lapis was already getting up to finish looking to see if seats were up and goes to her little seat at the front.

Pearl nods at her along the way, as well as Jamie finishes his voice warm ups for the usual safety procedures of the flight.

“La, la, put you heads between your knees, la, put your air mask on before assisting others,” he warbles and feels his throat.

Lapis sighs, her coworkers were always a bit strange. A perfectionist war veteran, Pearl, and a theater wannabe who was waiting for his big break, and informing everyone of his future big break.

Pearl straightens Lapis’s collar as she walks by and they get their seats prepare for takeoff.

Lapis would like to say she still got the woosh in her stomach from the takeoff, her arm hairs standing on end and her brain buzzing like a double shot of espresso. But now, a year and half as a stewardess and it was just a walk down a lax stroll down a childhood neighborhood.

The plane rattles, they are suctioned into the sky as they bend against gravity into the sky, Lapis closes her eyes and imagines herself at the wheel. Only 5% of all pilots were women. She could change that.

Lapis waits for the plane the level off and nods at Pearl and Jamie, who was repeating Shakespeare phrases nervously under his breath as he always did.

Lapis snorts and punches him in the shoulder, “come on, I think the guy in 10A needs a doggy bag and a sparkling water.

Jamie nods and gets back up, his face gaining its color back, “do you think he’s single?”  
  
Lapis boops him on the nose, “don’t even think about. That last business person you hit on was drama enough. We’re still sending Garnet Anderson apology letters.”

He swallows dryly, “that was a misunderstanding…And she was really cool about it!”

“Don’t I know it.”

Lapis walks the aisles and scowls at the frat boys who watch her pass with too much interest. She’s polite, of course she is, that was the job, but she doesn’t ask if they want extra blankets.

“Stewardess!” Lapis pauses again and then heads to the front of the thin Delta flight.

“Yes, passenger?” Lapis asks coolly and Peridot leans back.

“Could you fluff my pillow?”  
  
Lapis knew this was gonna happen, “What, before or after the foot rub and joining the mile high club?”  
  
Peridot’s eyes light up and she bounces up and down, “could we-”  
  
“No. That was a joke.” Lapis leans down and fluffs her girlfriends pillow anyway, “what’s up?”  
  
Peridot shrugs, “I can’t sleep. Too wired.”  
  
Lapis points outside, “you’re on a red eye. Count the stars.”  
  
Peridot shakes her head, “I’d rather be up.” She gives her her tell-tale ear to ear goofy grin, “with you.”  
  
Lapis blushes and fluffs her pillow a little more, “you’re too honest…” She mutters under her breath, “And I’ll be busy, busy. Even on a half-full plane.”

“Busy, busy, that’s cute, un-Lapis like, say it again.” Peridot leaned forward and pushed her hoody-covered chest out towards her.

Lapis coughs, “passenger, are you flirting with me?" She winks, "I said- busy- busy.”

Peridot laughed and Lapis slips away, going to prepare the soda-snacks-coffee cart. She sneaks one of the tasteless too-sweet cookies into her mouth and munches out of habit.

Pearl sternly watches her, but she shrugs and distracts Pearl, “So,” Lapis munches, “was piloting in ‘nam anything like this?”  
  
It was a random venture, but the older women’s favorite topic, she claps her hands together and Lapis gets another cookie, “well, no. No jungle, air conditioning is available. Oh, let me tell you about this cargo run, Rose’s plane was already running out of fuel, the Cambodian pass was out-gunned and covered by the Khmer rouge a real, excuse my language, group of son of bitches, let me tell you-”

Lapis cackles and Jamie comes back to tell them the young business man in 10A told him to call him Soup.

“What?” Lapis interrupts Pearl and blinks at Jamie.

“He said his name is Dejour. So…he said I should call him Soup.”  
  
Lapis laughs heartily and Jamie holds his hand over his heart, “I’m in love.”

“Oh my God.” Lapis proceeds to groan.  
  
Lapis was about to chat about ‘nam, the Khmer rouge and Jamie’s latest heart aneurysm when a voice calls to her.

“Stewardess!” Peridot waved at them in the front of the plane.

Pearl blinks back and forth between them, “that one wants you.”  
  
Jamie hums, “do you know her?” Jamie looked around and then poked teasingly, “isn’t your girlfriend on this flight?”

Lapis crosses her hands across her chest, “no!” She turns around, “but also,  _you_  are not allowed to hit on her.”  
  
Lapis stalks stiff-backed over to her, “what?” She hisses.

“I can’t sleep,” Peridot pouts again, “can I have some coffee…or maybe a certain pretty girl in Delta uniform.”  
  
Lapis sighs and pokes her in the chest, “your stewardess is still jet-lagged from Australia…and she can’t give preferential treatment.”  
  
Peridot shakes her head, “it was my understanding that flight policy was a smooch for every turbulence en route.”  
  
Lapis snorts and pats her wild hair, “you wish.”  
  
Lapis goes back to the cart and knocks back a coffee and bland cookie. Pearl was telling Jamie about taking down ten soldiers in a whirl of her youth.

Lapis was snickering and started down the aisle. “Coffee? Orange juice? Soda?” She whispers to the sleeping passengers, drooling on the shoulders and nodding off into their chests.

Books were out and it was a quiet flight, dim and pitter-pattering with interspersed coughing and downcast gazes.

Someone hands her a puke bag over and Lapis grimaces and considers changing careers, maybe a kangaroo boxer.

“Stewardess!” Lapis clenches her fists and finishes her rounds.

The hours slowly tick back, honey thick and filled with drowsy hours and a crying baby that Lapis was harassed about.

“All I’m saying, is maybe that mother and child should be escorted off the plane.” One of the older men with a gruff tinder informs her.

“Sir.” Lapis says calmly, “we are 39,000 thousand feet above the ground. No one is being escorted off.”  
  
“She was breastfeeding in public!” He says over a biography of Napoleonic strategy bibliography.   
  
She nods with a crackling smile, “as we do.”  
  
“Will you go talk to her at the very least,” he squints at her name tag, “Latus.”

Lapis nods and assures him she will go talk to the mother and tell her to ‘control herself.’ Lapis goes over and slips the mother another package of nuts.

It was an hour until the flights landing, and the tiredness was edging into Lapis’s vision, she was ready to be home and curled up with her cat and perhaps a little girlfriend wrapped around her waist.

“Stewardess!” Lapis groans, speaking of her.

“Peridot,” she scolds her as she comes over to her, “I’m working.”  
  
“You’re chatting with that Pearl women about the best way to kill a man.”  
  
“That’s for work.” Lapis retorts and Peridot smiles wearily up at her. Lapis sighs and looks around and sneaks in a face-stroke, “you haven’t slept at all.”  
  
Peridot finally looks down and fiddles with her hands, “I just.. I didn’t want to worry you.”  
  
“Huh?” Lapis sits down next to her and keeps her eyes on her gf.

“They didn’t like our product is all.” Peridot sighs in a small hiccup of noise, “the robonoid is shelved.” She said sadly as her invention was rejected again.

“Oh Peridot… These things can take time.”

Peridot looks out the window with forlorn, “counting stars isn’t working.”

Lapis saddles up to her, forgetting the other passengers and co-workers, she gathers Peridot to her chest and rests her head on her shoulder.

“Count them for me.” She asks slowly and Peridot looks outside.

“One,” Lapis kisses her across the nape of her neck.

Peridot jumps sharply, “what was that?”  
  
“A kiss. For every star in the sky- that’s what,” she starts mumbling and blushing furiously. “You are.”  
  
“Did you just call me your sky?”  
  
“No!” Lapis defends but she was holding her closer and her face was on fire. “Maybe.” 

“…Two, three,” Lapis kisses her cheekily across the nose and cheek, and Peridot keeps looking outside. “Four, five, six…”  
  
They get through the slice of sky available to them and Peridot falls asleep on her with a slight head nod and little pecks covering her face.

"I'm sorry to hear about the trip," Lapis kisses her again warmly on the sternum, "or the flight." Peridot mumbles something back to her, and they prepare for landing.


	4. The Cat and the Bird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> terms: libero-roving defender position (short people can play it), setter-’sets’ up the ball and orchestrates game play

_Ground and Sky_

“I’m not playing with her.” Lapis says sternly as she puts her hands on her hips.

Garnet looked at her coolly, not flinching backwards under Lapis’s steady glare, “the decision has already been made.”

Amethyst pops her gum next to Lapis’s shoulder, “we know she’s like the opposite of your type-”

“What?” Lapis jumped and socked Amethyst in the shoulder, “I don’t have a type.” Lapis defends.

“Yeah, tall, muscley and a straight up bitch.”

Lapis stuck out her tongue but turned back to their setter, “Garnet, I’m saying for this for the team, she’s 5’2, and has said the words ‘neheheheh’ six times since I got here. It’s not a good match.”

Garnet sighed and lowered her glasses, “she was the best one at the tryouts.”  
  
“Besides, she’s a libero, she doesn’t need to be tall. Aren’t you like 5’6 yourself Lapis? Hell, I’m only 5’5, and I’m the goddamn ace.” Amethyst pops her gum in Lapis’s direction and Lapis slumps her shoulders over.

“She’s friends with Jasper.”  
  
“She’s _around_ Jasper. There’s a difference.” Garnet pats her on the back, “team work.” And that was the end of the discussion.

The sound of sneakers against wood floors fills the air, alongside carts being wheeled out and the metal grate of nets being wheeled up.

Lapis bawled her hands up and grit her teeth.

“Besides,” Amethyst says with a hand wave, “didn’t she try to give you that recorder already? She likes you.”  
  
“Whatever.”

Lapis reluctantly steps back onto the court and takes hold of first the dusty matted surface of a volleyball she finds.

“Hey, Lapis, Lapis!” Peridot waved at her enthusiastically and makes her way over, “Amethyst told me the funniest joke just now. Here, they say don’t smile, but get a load of this: a boy walks past a cathouse and-”

“I want you to receive this.” Lapis backs up and puts the volleyball in the air.

“What,” The freshman’s face falls open, blank and confused, “practice hasn’t started yet.”

Lapis glances over at Garnet and waves, “our setter wants me to vet you. Help.”  
  
Peridot frowns for a moment and then breaks out into a tired grin. “Alright. Alright Lapis, yeah, I have heard you have the best serve in the University.”  
  
Lapis snorts and then stands up straight, “damn right. Best float serve this side of the Mississippi. And the other side. All the sides.” She loses the phrase a little bit in the middle.

Peridot laughs, “all over the Mississippi. That’s you.”

“Just,” she takes in a deep breath in through her nose, “stop the ball.”

Peridot nods enthusiastically with her fluffy hair bobbing up and down. “Gottcha.”

Lapis takes her to the second set of volleyball nets at the end of the gym and lets the rest of the team start warm up drills on the other. Lapis was gonna show her a real athlete.

“You ready?” She calls as she bounces the ball up and down and then backs up one step at a time.

“Oh ye-” Lapis leaps up in to the air before she finishes and serves the ball tightly and with the force of a wound up spring. It smacks satisfactorily against her palm and soars across the net.

It hits Peridot squarely in the center of the head, “Gah!” She squawks and falls to the floor- but not before hitting it with her forearm and sending it back across the net.

Lapis watches it uselessly fall to her side of the court. “Oh.” She says gently.

Peridot hops to her feet, rubbing her head and jumping up and down again, “Ow.”

Lapis smiles coolly, “alright over there short stuff?”

“I’m good, okay, let’s go again! That was so powerful Lapis, like, you’re arms don’t look like they’d have that kind of punch to them, but wow!”

Lapis blinked and tilted her head, “I just hit you in the head.”  
  
She nods like a hungry hippo in the hands of a four year old, “uh-huh. I should have backed up to get it properly, but hey, you’ll see, I’ll get all to be singing ‘libero’ when I’m done.”

“Tch.” Lapis narrows her eyes and accidentally makes that weird anime noise. “Okay. Fine. Here we go.”

She goes for another volleyball, this time building up the anticipation and squishing it and feeling it between her finger tips. “I hear you hang out with Jasper.” She says smoothly as she strangles the volleyball in her grasp.

Peridot smiles back at her flatly, “I hear you dated Jasper.”  
  
Lapis growls and spikes the ball across the net in one swing, she hits it to the back of the court, but Peridot is quick on her feet and dives for the ball. It bounces back into the air.

Lapis fumes and goes for another volleyball before Peridot can barely get back into position. “But it’s really more of a circumstantial thing. She was assigned as my ‘big sister’ at the school and she wants me to do her homework and junk.”  
  
Lapis’s face softens, “did you?”  
  
Peridot makes a face back at her and sticks out her tongue, “No.” She responds indignantly and Lapis chuckles and flat lines the ball hard across the court. Peridot misses that one as it floats and then falls in a strange dance of gravity and momentum.

“You really _can_ fly!” Peridot was praising her again and Lapis was considering the next ball with abject concentration. Peridot’s face was too bright and shining on her direction at that very second.

Lapis shakes her head, “and you need to show 5’2 girls can play volleyball.”  
  
“Why do you think I came to this school? This team is full of shorties! The shorty squad. We’re gonna eat ‘em alive.”

Lapis finally breaks into a smile. “Alright. I hear that.” She spikes the ball again, and again as Peridot keeps receiving every one of them, on her knees, with her foot. She was determined as a golden retriever whose mission in life was to be ‘best catch dog’ ever.

“So,” Peridot pants, “why did _you_ join the volleyball team?” Peridot wipes her brow but her green eyes never leave Lapis’s face as she prepares the next ball. “I hear you spend whole games looking like you're watching paint dry.”

Lapis sprouts a wicked grin, “You know, to get out of PE credits, and,” she makes a little shimmy with her shoulders, “for all the girls in tight little shorts.”

Peridot seems to choke on her tongue as her face bloomed patterns of red roses, Lapis hurls the ball in her direction. This one doesn’t go over the net however and hits the top of the netting and lands on her side of the court, Peridot laughs at her.

Lapis was swearing and sweating through her jersey more than usual when the vice-captain and middle blocker, Pearl, comes over, “very nice. You’re technique is so lively today Lapis, usually you just lull around and watch the ball hit the ground.”

Lapis scowls over in Pearls direction, Pearl shrugs with a smile on her lips and turns to Peridot, “and you, I’ve never seen Lapis take such an interest in anyone! You’re doing so well with receiving, she serves like she wants to burn a hole in the ozone, I know.”

Peridot was sparkling, “interest?” She puffs out her chest and glances at Lapis, “well, there is a lot to be interested in.”

Lapis scoffs and bounces their last ball up and down, “What is it Pearl?”  
  
Pearl smiles knowingly between and Lapis wonders about letting loose a stray ball and letting it ‘accidentally’ wack the color off her lips.

“Practice is over, I was thinking I would help you pick up all 41 balls you were lobbing at her.”

Peridot was shrugging but something tugs at Lapis’s insides as her feet squeak on the scuffed gym floors, “we were going to keep going.”  
  
Peridot turns to her with a mouth in an ‘O’ shape and little individual stars in her gaze, “We were?”  
  
“Oh honestly,” Pearl turns back to Peridot, “don’t Lapis torture you, you can clean up whenever-”

“I want to keep going!” Peridot crows to even Lapis’s surprise, and then she clears her throat, “I mean, I want us to be the best, and Lapis’s serve will surely make me that.”

Lapis was blushing and squeezing the ball in her hands again, Pearl looks between the two of them, “well alright…clean up when you’re done, and stretch!” Pearl emphasizes the stretch, she was all about stretching.

Lapis nods numbly, “yeah, yeah, I’ll teach her the special Pearl pounce.”

“Precisely!” Pearl says with a finger in the air, “and here you go dear.” Pearl strolled over and put something in Peridot’s hand.

“What’s this?” Peridot’s eyes were wide.

“A Pearl point!” Pearl says with her sharp nose in the air, “you did well today.”  
  
Peridot wipes her brow and grins from ear to ear, “this team isn’t so bad.”

They wave Pearl off and Peridot puts her Pearl point down delicately and tell Lapis to ‘give her all you got!’

“Oh,” Lapis raises an eyebrow, “all I’ve got huh?”  
  
Peridot bounces on her toes, “yeah! I can take it. All you have.”

Lapis face stretches into a wide gleam of glee, “here we go then.” Lapis throws the ball in the air and jumps into the air, ruthlessly smashing it down, Peridot dives and it soars back into the air after it crashes into her forearms.

“Nice.” Lapis says despite herself, Peridot gives her a thumbs up.

They volley back and forth and Peridot chats her up, Lapis finds out that Peridot’s favorite color is green, she likes kimchi and doesn’t trust anyone who doesn’t, her sinuses get infected a lot, but she has an immune system ‘of a beast!’. She was starting a one man band, she wants to go stargazing with Lapis some night.

Lapis was blushing and laughing breathlessly by the end of it, her muscles complain at her as she wound up one more time.

She felt the whole charade was off the second the ball left her fingertips and Peridot jumped for it, her knees were off, clacking together like skeleton keys on a ring.

It’s worse when Peridot lands with heels crunching in a noise like a blender with a spoon in it, Lapis winces, Peridot topples to the floor.

“Ow!” She yells with a little whimper at the end.

“Oh God,” Lapis rushes over, “ Are you okay?” She asks because she wasn’t heartless, and Peridot was mumbling and clutching at one of her ankles.

“I think,” Peridot winces and she tries to laugh, “I landed wrong.”

“Lemme see,” Lapis tries to get a look at the flesh beneath Peridot’s trembling fingers.

Peridot was laughing woodenly again, “Shit. I was hoping you wouldn’t, you know.”

“You know?”  
  
Peridot grimaces, “I didn’t want to prove you right, about being on the team,” she mumbles into her chest, “heh, sorry.”  
  
Lapis realizes that Peridot might have caught on that she was being tested by Lapis like a cruel SAT.

“No, no, you did great! I pushed too hard.” Lapis was frantic, “I’ll go get some ice, you do some stretches, one sec.”  
  
Lapis ascends, putting the balls away one by one as she goes and fetching the largest ice pack she can find. Peridot hisses when Lapis rushes back and presses it against her swollen ankle.

Lapis blinks, “it just looks a little bruised. You might be okay.”

Peridot nods with fervor, “yeah. I’m fine, my body is silly-putty, it bounces right back.”

Lapis claps her hands together, “good. Because that looked painful.” She places the ice pack firmly on, “you’re pretty tough freshman.”

“Of course,” Peridot crows, “though.” She looks up at her behind dark eyelashes, “I'm sure…it could use a kiss?” She asks with a wicked grin and a pout.

Lapis pinches her cheek and pulls, “cheeky! Very bold shorty.”  
  
Peridot coughs, “thought I would try. With the ice queen of the volleyball team who apparently joined to look at girls in short-shorts.”  
  
Lapis shrugs and leans forward, “let me tell you secret,” she leans down and breathes lightly into her ear, Peridot shudders briefly under her grip, “I also really like to hit things really hard.”  
  
Peridot breaks into a hearty laugh and Lapis joins her, “you’re so weird!” Peridot declares and Lapis leans down on her and helps her finish stretching on the ground.

Peridot tries to get up, but stumbles and a flash of pain oozes off her features in a thick grimace of tightening muscles.

“Hey, hey, stop that.” Lapis takes Peridot’s arm.

“What?” Peridot asks through gritted teeth.

Lapis leans in, “‘cause.” Lapis pecks her on the cheek, warm and pulsing with blood, the other girl flares the color of pizza sauce and bright brick houses, “I did this. I’ll help make it better.”  
  
Peridot only mumbles indecipherable things as she climbs onto Lapis’s back. She perches on her back like a kiolo and Lapis piggybacks her to the locker room. Lapis picks up their book bags, puts them on her front and carries them all the way home. 

“You’re so strong.” Peridot mumbles into her ear and Lapis laughs.

“What did you expect? We’re gonna be number one in state you know.”  
  
Peridot’s arms were wrapped around her neck. “With me on the team at least.”  
  
Lapis chuckles again and puts her gently down on her doorstep, “here’s your stop fearless libero.”

“Fearless?” Peridot predictably lit up, “I like that.”

Lapis shrugs, “anyway.”

“But wait! There’s something on your arm!” Peridot shouts and Lapis jumps and looks around wildly, Peridot grabs her arm and starts scribbling something down on it in thick black sharpie.

“What the hell?” Lapis leans forward and Peridot finishes with a flourish.

“It may or may not be my number.”  
  
Lapis chokes her own tongue in disbelief and laughs breathlessly. “Cheeky! Jesus.”

Peridot throws her a peace sign and a solute as she hobbles inside, “fearless.”

Lapis shakes her head and puts Peridot’s number down in her phone, ‘idiot defender with a button nose.’

“Call me!” Peridot calls before shutting the door and Lapis throws her arms in the air and the ache is almost worth it.


End file.
